Hello, and welcome to the HoltBlog. I am very happy to welcome Korski, an old friend and an excellent writer. Korski is a well known writer, published author, monger extaordinaire, denizen of the highways and loways of life, and a good drinking buddy. Welcome aboard Korski!

MAGD is doing an excellent job translating my stories into French. Thank you David. And you can find my stories, as well as those of some of the best writers in Asia on ThailandStories.com. Visit them now, click on Author List and select any author. Enjoy!

Right here on HoltBlog, you will find many original stories about Thailand, politics, and just good fun, as well as some news stories I feel are interesting or important.

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The lost souls we see wandering into Thailand today seeking the warmth and solace of a woman, any woman, started out with the hippie movement back in the 1960’s. That was a euphoric time to be alive. I was lucky to be there when it started. I was involved in it up to my neck, or higher. I experimented, demonstrated, worked for change: I was there.

But what really started it was DRUGS. Yes, you can shake your head now and say bullshit. Were you there? Maybe you were and didn’t do no drugs! Well, you are not qualified to judge then are you? Let me tell you why Drugs were so important to the social changes that started back then, and why drugs are still so important to what is happening today, and how drugs were and are essential to getting so many men to Thailand.

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I was sittin inside the outside dunny
When a red back spider came my way
It was big and black and nasty lookin’
He looked real hungry on that day

I jumped up off the dunny seat
With me daks around me knees
And I backed out of that dunny door
And whaddaya think I sees?

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Every monger with even modest credentials knows all about the butterfly label. Hookers will ask him at some point–when the suspicion arises as to whether or not he’s going to return for round two or three or be a worthy investment: Are you a butterfly? Or in the Philippines, if they have reason to think you might be that and a bit more, they will ask: Are you a helicopter? (I’m not quite sure of the image they have in mind. A warship? Lots of territory to be covered, or already covered?)

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Ritter was not the sort of man who caught your attention. Six foot two tall, thin almost to the point of emaciation, with thinning hair slicked badly over a mostly balding head, he was always just there. A ghost. Unnoticeable. With his large round gold wire framed glasses that slightly magnified his eyes he quickly gained the nickname chanee from his Thai co-workers soon after he arrived in Bangkok. Added to his magnified eyes, his slightly longer than normal arms made him look very much like a gibbon, a chanee in Thai.

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Randy woke up with a start. He lay there in the dark on his bed, eyes wide open, staring around the dark room. There was something wrong. He looked beside him. The girl he’d brought home from the bar last night was still there, lying on her side with her back to him. No surprises there. He listened. There were no other sounds in the room. No one was moving around stealthily. No dark shadows that should not be there. So what was wrong? He shrugged. It must just be his mind playing tricks on him. He’d drunk a lot last night. Probably just the heebie-jeebies.

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I was not surprised when I heard that Hans was dead. I had thought the end would come soon and it would be his liver. I guess Hans was right in being paranoid. The colonels would get tired of him taking what they saw as theirs. Wan said they found his body in the river about eight kilometers north of Vientiane. He had been decapitated and they had cut off his hands. Hans would have said this is how they would do it.

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Malcolm and I were never saints, but we had a conventional upbringing that included a very strong respect for life. Neither of us were killers; or so we thought. But circumstances can push any man to the brink if the motivation is strong enough.

After we killed Baker I took Malcolm home to my place and poured us both stiff drinks. Then we sat out on the balcony where I rolled a couple of thick joints. We didn’t smoke often, but this was a special occasion. We both needed to relieve the stress. I even considered calling up a couple of hookers we liked to play with together as a foursome, but decided to talk to Malcolm first. Right now, he needed to calm down and come to terms with what we had done.

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He’s dead now. There’s really not much I can do about it any more. Why did he have to spoil everything?

Sorry, I guess you are wondering what I am talking about. Let me start at the beginning. Malcolm and I have been friends ever since we met at kindergarten. I don’t know why. We just met and the chemistry was there. He was in a fight with another boy. I saw what was happening and went over to help him. Even at age five I had this inner confidence that has stood me in good stead all my life. I stepped between them and just hit the other boy between the eyes. He was stunned. Then he ran away immediately. Malcolm and I became firm friends from that time on.

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When we are young, we collect stamps, baseball and football cards, toy cars and trucks. When we are older, and if we have enough money, we collect antique cars and motorcycles, mountains climbed above 20,000 feet, classic 78 records. A great many academics–although they would deny this is what they are doing–collect publications, the more, obviously, the better. And indeed, collecting in this sense is even highly institutionalized, to the point where promotions and raises are based not on the quality of what one does, but on the number of publications. The collecting mentality of the eight year old boy never dies.

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